In
a March 1 email sent to DSS staff, Corprew, said her decision was based
on “ongoing health issues over the last year and a half.” She added
that “Dare County is a wonderful place to work and you all are second
to none, serving the residents of Dare County with kindness,
compassion, and sincerity…I have fond memories of my time in Dare
County and wish each of [you] the best.”

Corprew’s management style, however, had generated criticism and
controversy. It was the focus of a Sentinel story earlier this year
that included interviews with a number of people who had worked at DSS
and cited their view that under her leadership, “the agency has
undergone a kind of culture change, putting less emphasis on the
client-centric nature of the work and creating a workplace beset with
internal tension, morale problems and troubling turnover.”

The Sentinel story, headlined “Concerns raised about management at Dare
Social Services,” examined turnover and morale problems within DSS. It
also looked at the case of veteran social worker Jonna Midgette, whose
termination last summer was seen by some as both unjustified and
symptomatic of larger management problems.

The story reported that a number of concerns “focus on Corprew’s
management style and several of those interviewed recalled that she
described herself as ‘the cleaner’ or ‘the terminator,’ or in other
similar terms, in what was widely perceived to be a reference to her
willingness to show employees the door.”A Sentinel request to interview
Corprew for that story was not granted. But in an interview with the
paper, Jay Burrus, the Director of the Dare County Health and Human
Services Department, which includes DSS, defended her performance.

“I think she has standards and performance standards….but I don’t think she’s unfair,” he said. “It’s not a toxic workplace.”

Responding to criticism about a culture change in DSS, Burrus said: “I
haven’t seen a lot of changes in the operation or culture. I think some
of this [criticism of Corprew] is scapegoating, honestly.”